How Safe Are We? Crime Writer Compares Stats, Then and Now

﻿﻿﻿﻿I write about crimes, real and fictional, so my view of the world is a bit off-center. Perhaps it’s a natural outcome of spending months at a time in courtrooms taking notes on sensational murder cases.

It’s dramatic, sure, but it forces one to confront head-on a world most of us prefer to relegate to the things-that-happen-to-someone-else category. Once you know the families the worst has happened to, it’s not so easy to distance oneself. The truth is that they’re often not that different from the rest of us.

The result is that I tend to drive friends and family a bit crazy, warning them to be careful. My friends, thanks to my constant nagging, know all the cautions, from parking under lights in lots and having their keys ready when they leave to never, ever, ever getting in a car with a would-be abductor. One of my homicide detective friends is so adamant that he’s told his wife and daughter to turn and run even if an assailant has a gun. “The truth is that the guy’s probably not a crack shot,” my friend explains. “But if you get in the car, the statistics aren’t good.”

So, I have a tendency to be a worrier, I admit.

Yet I’ve never felt that way close to home. I live in a quiet Houston suburb, a bedroom community with tree-shaded streets where kids ride bikes and joggers dominate the sidewalks mornings and evenings. Sure, I know crimes occur all over the country, all over the world, including in neighborhoods like mine, but it’s always felt like a bit of a haven to me. I appreciate the fact that a big crime in my neighborhood is a kid knocking down a mailbox — that was, until last week, when I drove home from the local Kroger and noticed a hand-lettered sign on a wooden post stuck into the grass at a corner that read: “Anyone with information on the robbery/assault that occurred here, please call….”

For a moment, I felt puzzled. Was that real? Was someone mugged just blocks from my home? That night I watched the local news including video of a well-dressed middle-aged man driving a white Prius stealing delivered packages from front porches.

Over the years, I’ve heard often that tough economic times breed crime, and as I watched the news, I wondered what our will-it-ever-end recession is doing to crime rates.

So before bed, I did what many of us do when confronted with a question, I Googled, typing in: U.S. CRIME RATE STATISTICS PAST AND PRESENT. What I discovered was the opposite of my assumption; despite the anti-Santa who was stealing presents, despite the nightly headlines and news footage that makes us question our safety, despite the anomaly of a mugging in my quiet neighborhood, I was relieved to discover that we’re safer now than we were a decade ago. As a matter of fact, the overall crime rate in 2010 wasn’t much different than it was in 1968. Did you know that? I didn’t.

Looking at the trends, rates climbed from 1960 through 1990 and then began to fall. In fact, according to the United States Crime Index, rates per 100,000 inhabitants have declined nearly every year since 1990, both violent and non-violent offenses. In 1970, for instance, the overall crime rate was 3.984. Twenty years later in 1990, it hit 5.820. Fast forward two more decades, and by 2010 the figure had plummeted to 3.345. The only troublesome statistic I came upon was that a larger percentage of the crimes are violent now than they were in 1968. Then: 298.4. Now: 403.6. Yet in 1990 it was a whopping 731.8, so even that’s headed in the right direction.

Why? A bit more scouting, and I read a lot of theories, from the aging of baby-boomers (crime is predominantly committed by the young), to harsher sentences and more people in prisons, to better policing. There were also theories about cocaine fueling the rise in crime rates through the Eighties and into the Nineties. The bottom line, it appears, is that no one truly knows why rates are lower, at least not definitively.

Was this drop in crime reported and I missed it? It could be. Perhaps it was simply lost in the murders and mayhem that dominate the headlines. Whatever the situation, I was glad to read it now, to understand that despite my perception that the U.S. is a more dangerous place than decades ago, it’s truly not.

The gloomy economic environment and our high unemployment rates are admittedly painful on many levels, but it’s at least comforting to learn one result isn’t higher crime rates. That said, will I stop locking my doors and parking under lights? No. But it’s nice to know that statistically I’m safer now than I was twenty years ago.

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Here’s a frightening thought… the statistics you have such confidence in could be WRONG!

Are crimes reported the same way they were in the 60′s? …70′s, 80′s… even 90′s?

If crime has gone DOWN so much, WHY do we have MORE people in Prison and MORE prisons? Why are there more police?

I wish I could feel as comfortable with the statistics on crime as you do… but I just don’t think they jive with ALL the facts. Now who would gain from the warped perception that Crime Rates are lower? I wonder….

The crime rate has been steadily declining since 1990, so are you suggesting that twenty years ago the methods for reporting crime were altered? I’m not sure what you’re implying. If this is a suggestion that something nefarious is being done for current political reasons, that doesn’t appear to wash, since the change took place gradually over two decades.

Crime statistics are indeed collected and reported pretty much the same way since the 1960′s. You are correct that there a huge number of people in prisons, the United States leads the world in the percentage of people in prison (in the 1980′s the US was in third place, behind South Africa and the Soviet Union). A very large percentage of the people in prison are POWs in the “War on Drugs”. There are very severe sentences for drug charges. Something like 30% are there for possession or dealing illegal drugs, more are there for violent crimes associated with the business side of illegal drugs.

You asked “Was this drop in crime reported and I missed it?” Yes. It has been news for some time. It is a classic problem of “reporting bias”. Only news stories that generate viewers, listeners, and readers get the attention. People remember bad news much more than good news. Lung cancer rates are declining the United States as well (corresponding to declining smoking) but that gets little attention as well.

Isn’t the classic explanation from Freakonomics? Roe v. Wade was 1973; eighteen years later, 1991. Unwanted children were no longer appearing. So the supply of young people (males in particular) without supportive parents dried up, resulting in lower crime rates.

Kathryn: First and foremost, let me compliment you for a riveting show with Susan Murphy Milano and Diane Fanning this week! As a homicide survivor, writer and researcher, such stuff is in my blood as well….

As for the data re crime statistics, I think that all of the comments have their place. As a person who is single m with a physical disability and survivor of crime, I know that I have particular vulnerabilities. However, safety is a matter of common sense and somewhat a state of mind. I don’t parade around as a “poor me victim.”

While we are on the topic of vulnerabilities, although I certainly don’t want to steal your thunder, I’d be honored if you and others would like to read my former blog post of nearly a year ago on “Vulnerabilities. If so, the link is: http://donnagore.com/2011/01/

Thank you, Donna. We had a great time doing the show, which was on “Women who kill.” I agree that often it is a matter of common sense. For instance, as safe as New York City is, I’m reluctant to take subways in the middle of the night. Then I’ll usually spring for a cab. My LE friends tell me that the majority of crimes are simply a matter of opportunity.

I’m from and live in England and I have been fully aware that crime in the US has been falling quite sharply, pretty much, year-on-year for the last 20-odd years, and I am always surprised when I read posts/articles from people (esp. people from the US) who are shocked or dubious to hear/read aboutt the declining numbers. But that’s probably just because I have a slightly morbid interest in murder numbers, hence how I got here (typing ‘murder rate’ into Google then hitting the ‘news’ option, something I do from time to time).

I personally believe the numbers. At least, I don’t believe they’re skewed by the FBI (it’s the FBI who collate and publish the official classified crime figures – be careful what you read online and look for a creditable source).

There’s no way murder rates have been skewed as much as the drop. Seriously. America is in a better place, today. And I can’t see America ever returning to ‘the bad old days’ of the 80s and early 90s. The infrastructure (socially, culturally and even economically) is in place to stop that ever happening.

I am no expert by any stretch, this is just what , over time, seems a reasonable likelihood.

In Southern Nevada a few years back, the word was that each year when the police department reported its crimes to the FBI — numbers that go into the national statistics — if, say, burglary was up the year before, they’d move it to a different category, then everyone would say, “Wow, burglary is down this year.” The numbers, I was told, were skewed. I don’t know if that’s being done now, but that was, I was told from the inside, sometimes done. Numbers are an interesting thing.